Pothole thickens with a modern Lazarus

We're always moaning and groaning about our public works. We curse potholes, blame engineers and contractors, and question the wisdom of anyone who thought these roads were meant for 21st-c. vehicles. We may have been too harsh and misunderstood their true genius: the multipurpose design of our roads and flyovers. And here's why. A 50-yr-old woman declared brain-dead in Bareilly was being transported home to Pilibhit, when the ambulance she was in hit a lunar-level crater on the highway. While the passengers were likely cursing the pothole, the jolt did something unexpected: resurrect the 'dead'. Upon impact, the brain-dead woman began breathing again - achieving what doctors and standard resuscitators could not.

What we have is a modern desi take on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, where Dr Victor Frankenstein injects a 'spark of being' into a patchwork body to bring it to life. Later film adaptations, of course, dramatised this moment with crackling electric machines jolting lifeless flesh into motion. If Frankenstein were around today, he probably would skip the lab theatrics and head straight for Indian roads and highways. Why fuss with a galvanic apparatus when a strategically placed pothole can deliver the same life-affirming jolt? Shelley's novel's subtitle, 'The Modern Prometheus', could be replaced with 'The Modern Lazarus'.